In big shift, Regents vote to exclude state tests from teacher evals until 2019

In a dramatic reversal, New York’s Board of Regents voted Monday to suspend the use of state standardized test scores in teacher evaluations for four years.

According to the proposal state officials presented Monday, teachers will receive two annual evaluation ratings beginning next year and lasting through 2019. One rating will include state test results but be used only for advisory purposes. The other, which state officials called a transition rating, will not use state test results and will be the one used for personnel decisions. The same arrangement would also apply to principals during that period.

The plan takes up a recommendation made last week by a panel appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and represents a fundamental change to New York’s teacher evaluation system.

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State policymakers, local school districts, and teachers unions have spent much of the last three years refining evaluation systems meant to categorize teachers more effectively than the longstanding system that rated teachers as satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The rating systems weigh multiple classroom observations as well as state test scores and local measures of student learning.

But the use of complicated formulas to determine student academic growth and repeated changes to New York’s state tests eroded trust in those scores. So did the fact that many teachers were rated based on state test scores of students they didn’t teach, or in subjects unrelated to their own.

Now, those observations and locally selected tests will remain, but state test scores won’t count in decisions about whether teachers get tenure or extra support.

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The change follows mounting criticism of the teacher evaluation system, which grew in tandem with the state’s testing opt-out movement. One in five eligible students didn’t take the state’s math or English exams last year.

The number of Regents skeptical of using test scores to rate teachers has swelled recently, as support for the policies eroded in Albany and nationally. On Monday, the changes earned nearly unanimous support from Regents and from State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia, who served on the governor’s task force.

“I’m glad that something happened in the atmosphere to get us to a better place because we certainly didn’t have this last year,” said Regent Betty Rosa. The state teachers union also hailed the vote.

Only outgoing Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, who has long supported test-based teacher evaluations, voted against the new regulation.

“I want to say that on the issue of this regulation I am of a different opinion,” Tisch said. “I do not believe that we can do away from an objective measure.”

The transition evaluations will remove the growth scores that the state has calculated based on its standardized math and English exams in grades 3 through 8 or on Regents exam scores for high school students. Locally selected measures of student learning will take their place.

The Regents also said they were considering changes to the growth model itself to take longer-term trends into account. During the four-year transition period, Elia said officials will focus on revamping the Common Core standards and considering alternative ways to evaluate teachers.

Last year’s law requiring half of a teacher’s evaluation to be based on state test scores remains on the books, with the Regents adopting the changes Monday as an emergency provision. (New York City, along with most districts, is still negotiating the details of those changes with its teachers union, and it’s unclear how the Regents’ actions will alter that process.)

The Regents will take another vote on the proposal on Tuesday. That will finalize the plan, though a public comment period will also follow.

One Detroit principal keeps his job as others get the ax. Next year’s challenge? Test scores.

Educators and staff from a Detroit middle school took the microphone on Tuesday evening to save their principal’s job. Addressing the school board, they listed off Eric Redwine’s virtues, arguing that recent problems at the school can be attributed to its transition from state to district management.

And the board listened. Redwine, principal of Brenda Scott Academy, kept his job in a narrow 4-to-3 vote. He was the only one to survive among more than a dozen other administrators — and three other principals — who either lost their jobs or were reassigned to new ones.

The vote came amid a quiet year for “non-renewals,” shorthand for losing one’s job. In previous years, every administrator in the district was forced to re-apply for their job every year, a tactic designed to give state-appointed emergency managers flexibility in the face of an unstable financial situation. This year, by contrast, only 16 administrators — including four principals — were notified by the superintendent’s office that their contracts would not be renewed, as Superintendent Nikolai Vitti seeks to bring stability to a district still recovering from repeated changes in management.

The principals were singled out for their school management, Vitti has said — not because of how students performed on tests. Test scores will be a major factor in principal contract renewals next spring for the first time under Vitti, part of the superintendent’s effort to meet his promise of boosting test scores.

Seven of the 16 administrators who received “non-renewals” asked the board to reconsider the superintendent’s decision. But in a vote on Tuesday evening, only Redwine survived. He’ll remain as principal of Brenda Scott Academy, according to board member LaMar Lemmons.

The other officials were not named, but Chalkbeat confirmed independently that the district did not renew its contracts with principals Sean Fisher, of Fisher Magnet Upper Academy, and Allan Cosma, of Ludington Magnet Middle School. Vitti previously attempted to remove Cosma, then agreed to offer him a job as assistant principal at Ludington.

At an earlier meeting, Cosma’s employees gathered to vouch for his work. On Tuesday, it was Redwine who received vocal support.

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Redwine himself argued publicly that the problems identified at his school by administrators — teacher vacancies and school culture — could be attributed to the school’s transition from a state-run recovery district back to the main district. The recovery district, called the Education Achievement Authority, was created in 2012 to try to turn around 15 of the most struggling schools in the district but the effort was politically unpopular and had limited success. Most of the schools were returned to the main district last summer when the recovery district was dissolved. The only exceptions were schools that had been closed or converted to charter schools.

“I’ve never been told your job is in jeopardy, never been presented a corrective action plan,” Redwine said. “I ask that you reconsider your decision.”

Of the 12 schools that returned to the district last summer, most still have the principals who were in place during the transition last summer. A few got new principals this year after their predecessors left and at least one other former recovery district principal was moved earlier in the year.

Many school leaders reported that the transition was very difficult. It occurred at a time when Vitti was new and still putting his team into place in the central office, making it challenging for principals of the schools to get information they needed about the new district.

When Marcia Horge worked for Redwine, she appreciated his openness to classroom experimentation and his schoolwide Sunday night email, which laid out a game plan for the week ahead.

Then the recovery district folded, Brenda Scott Academy rejoined the main district, and Horge found herself facing a steep pay cut. Rather than accept credit for only two of her 17 years of teaching experience, she left for the River Rouge district. But now, with the Detroit district planning to fully honor teacher experience starting this fall, Horge is contemplating a return to work for Redwine.

“He’s open to our ideas,” she said. “You can go to him. And when there’s a need, he steps in and makes sure we’re communicating.”

Meet the 38 teachers chosen by SCORE to champion education around Tennessee

Six teachers from Memphis have been awarded fellowships that will allow them to spend the next year supporting better education in Tennessee.

The year-long fellowships, offered by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, train and encourage teachers and other educators to speak at events, write publicly about their experiences, and invite policymakers to their classrooms. The program is in its fifth year through the nonpartisan advocacy and research organization, also known as SCORE, which was founded by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from Tennessee.

The fellowships, known as the Tennessee Educator Fellowships, have been awarded to 150 educators since the program’s launch in 2014. This year’s class of 38 educators from around the state have a combined 479 years of experience.

“The fellows’ diverse perspectives and experiences are invaluable as they work both inside and outside the classroom and participate in state conversations on preparing all students for postsecondary and workforce success,” SCORE President and CEO Jamie Woodson said in a news release.

Besides the Shelby County teachers, the group also includes educators who work for the state-run Achievement School District, public Montessori schools, and a school dedicated to serving children with multiple disabilities.

The 2018-19 fellows are:

Nathan Bailey, career technical education at Sullivan North High School, Sullivan County Schools